From left to right: New South Wales (NSW) Minister for Police and Counterterrorism Yasmin Catley, NSW Premier Chris Minns, and NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb speak to the media during a press conference at Sydney Police Center, Sydney, Jan. 17, 2025. Photo: AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi via Reuters Connect

Australian police have arrested and charged 14 members of an organized crime network in connection with a wave of antisemitic hate crimes across the country.

According to a statement from New South Wales (NSW) Police and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) on Tuesday, the suspects have been charged with 65 offenses, including participation in a criminal group, arson, and destruction of property.

This latest legal step comes as law enforcement works to combat a surge in antisemitic incidents across Australia which the country’s spy chief has called his agency’s top priority.

After the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, several Jewish sites in Australia have been relentlessly targeted with vandalism and even arson, especially in the past few months. In response, an NSW police task force, Strike Force Pearl, was established to address the wave of hate crimes and rising antisemitism.

Law enforcement in Sydney and Melbourne, home to the majority of Australia’s Jewish population, is actively investigating these hate crimes, including the recent discovery of a trailer containing explosives and a list of potential Jewish targets.

Based on their investigation, local police said the group’s actions did not appear to be driven by ideology, despite the attacks directly targeting the Jewish community.

“None of the individuals we have arrested … have displayed any form of antisemitic ideology,” NSW Police deputy commissioner David Hudson said following a series of raids on Tuesday night.

“I think these organized crime figures have taken an opportunity to play off the vulnerability of the Jewish community,” he continued.

Some of these individuals have been granted bail, while others remain in custody until their court appearances, either on Tuesday or at a later date.

Strike Force Pearl was established last year to address the rise in antisemitism and the recent wave of hate crimes across Australia. Since then, law enforcement has arrested 29 people and filed a total of 143 charges, with investigations still ongoing.

These latest arrests came after the AFP revealed that the caravan filled with explosives and material containing details about Jewish targets, discovered in January in a suburb of Sydney, was a “fake terrorism plot” linked to organized crime.

According to AFP Deputy Commissioner of National Security Krissy Barrett, the information authorities received about the caravan was fabricated, and the plot itself was an “elaborate scheme contrived by organized criminals domestically and offshore.”

On Tuesday, NSW Premier Chris Minns defended law enforcement’s response to the discovery, saying it was a serious threat at the time and that it “would have been negligent” not to have taken it seriously in the context of rising antisemitism.

“I think reasonable people would assume that NSW Police and the NSW government would say we want you to investigate this as if it was the worst possible potential exposure to the public,” he said.

“As a result of a very complex, detailed investigation, they were able to get to the bottom of this plot and present that evidence in the courts in the coming days.”

In response to the ongoing spike in antisemitism, Australia passed a new slate of hate crime laws last month which would, among other measures, imprison those who make terror threats or perform Nazi salutes.

According to a report from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the country’s Jewish community experienced over 2,000 antisemitic incidents between October 2023 and September 2024, a significant increase from 495 in the prior 12 months.